The past 365 days weren't all bad -- and we can prove it. Here are some of our favorite feel-good stories of the year.

Striking teachers save family from burning home

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Five striking teachers in a Pittsburgh school district picket line dropped their signs to run inside a burning house and rescue three people inside, including a former student.Local firefighters battled the six-alarm fire earlier this month, but the striking teachers who raced toward the flames were the real heroes.

"We were picketing and a lady across the street started shouting, 'Call 911!'" said Paul Hladio, one of the striking teachers.

"Instantaneously, I dropped my sign and ran across the street," said teacher Karen DeMarco.

"I just see her sprint across the road, almost get hit by a car," said Jeff Modrovich, another striking teacher who joined in the rescue, along with Pete Keller and Todd Hartman.

The teachers found three people who lived in the home: one, elderly; one of them with medical oxygen; one, a woman whom they once taught.

"Kayla's a former student of mine and I just felt I had to do something to get that family out," DeMarco said.

The local fire chief praised the teachers' bravery.

"If the teachers wouldn't have been here, somebody wouldn't have observed that, there's a chance somebody could have been very seriously injured or even worse," Fire Chief Rob Gottschalk said.

Miraculously, no one was injured.

Girlfriend of Oakland warehouse fire victim reunited with lost photo of the couple

Saya Tomioka, a Los Angeles-based yoga instructor, lost her boyfriend, Griffin Madden, in the tragic Oakland warehouse fire on Dec. 2. Heartbroken, she wrote a Facebook post that asked users to track down a photo that was snapped of the couple in New York City the year before. Miraculously, the photographer was found and the image recovered – but it was the touching message that Tomioka posted next to the snapshot that really captured the internet’s attention.

“Life is so strange. I've lost you, but I've never felt stronger in my life. Through our many years of love and growth, I learned how to be strong from you,” she wrote. “Your light touched so so so many people, and you taught/will continue to teach us to live our lives just as fully, youthfully and kindly as you did. I promise you that I will never stop dancing; I'll dance even harder. I will never stop laughing; I'll laugh even louder. I will never stop loving; I'll love even prouder.”

Woman with stage 4 brain tumor gets dream wedding

Becky Yonker, 33, was given her dream wedding by the hospital staff at the Levine Cancer Institute in October. Doctors discovered Yonker had a stage four brain tumor in 2013, just one year after she’d met soulmate Jarrod Bradley.

Yonker underwent surgery to remove the tumor in 2013, but the mass came back two years later. She was forced to have surgery again – all while trying to plan a wedding.

“We’ve been trying to plan a wedding and everything kept coming up so we kept having to postpone it,” Bradley said. “It was tough. She had more chemo, more radiation. We always knew it would come back. We’ve known from the beginning this is gonna be what kills her.”

Doctors at the Levine Cancer Institute saw the couple’s struggle and decided to throw them a dream wedding.

“One afternoon, I shared some bad news with Becky and she just looked in my eyes and told me she wanted to live,” Dr. Ashley Sumrall explained. “Then she whispered that she wanted to have a wedding and I knew we had to make it happen – and fast! My team quickly got behind the cause.”

The wedding was held Oct. 9 at St. Mary’s Chapel in Charlotte, North Carolina. The venue, food, photographer and cake were all generously donated.

Wanda Dench accidentally texted a stranger an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at her Phoenix suburban home. Seventeen-year-old Jamal Hinton received the text and asked Dench if he could join the festivities.

Firefighters said when they entered the home to rescue Viviana, they found Polo covering her body with his.

"She only had burns on her side because of it," the girl’s mother, Erika Poremski said. "He stayed with her the whole time in the bedroom and wouldn't even come downstairs to get out the door."

Paramedics were able to revive Viviana, who had severe burns on her face, arm and side. Polo did not survive the fire.

"He was my first baby and now I lost him," Poremski said.

No other injuries were reported.

Football players lay roses at the feet of cheerleader battling leukemia

In September, football players from Foothill High School laid orange roses at the feet of Ashley Adamietz, a cheerleader who’d been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia one month earlier. Orange is the color of leukemia awareness.

Local fans were touched when all 57 team members dropped the flowers next to Adamietz prior to the game.

Gainesville, Florida police officer Bobby White was called to a noise complaint in January and found a group of kids playing basketball.

Instead of asking the teens to turn the noise level down, White started a pickup game that attracted nearly a dozen neighborhood kids. The dash camera on White’s cruiser captured the entire exchange and was viewed on the department’s Facebook page more than 13 million times.

Former Orlando Magic basketball player Shaquille O’Neal saw the video and decided to assist White in a rematch with the teens. After the game, he shared some wisdom with the young players.

“I’m proud of you guys. Stay out of trouble. Listen to your parents. Respect your elders. You can be anyone you want to be. I’m from the same neighborhood you’re all from. I grew up just like this. Only you can change this," he said.